Ahab Rex--Blood on Blonde

In what’s become a revolving door for musical talent, original solo-project Ahab Rex has released their follow-up to The Queen of Softcore EP: Blood on Blonde. Featuring Chris Connelly (Ministry, Revolving Cocks), Martin Atkins (Nine Inch Nails), Steven Seibold, Dylan Ryan, and Assassins, Blood on Blonde is a vibrant effort full of quirky variety. The linking similarity is the duo behind it all, Ivan (a.k.a. Ahab Rex) and Brooke Cassell who handle vocals and most of the creative work. The album starts strong on "Ordinary Things," a creeping and crawling track with Ivan’s deep, dark, I’m-a-messed-up-serial-killer-with-black-lipstick vocals subliming it all. Yet, when we get to the instrumentally more up-beat track "Thank You Mister Russia," Ivan’s vocals remain unchanged. Listening to a sunny (even if the content isn’t) love story through the voice of a goth-like canter takes away any seriousness Ahab was hoping to achieve…and is frankly just humorous. "To Whom It May Concern" works better with Ivan’s vocal rut, giving him the chance to speak in his creep-tastic voice as opposed to sing. "Undertow No.5" is a distorted delicious mess, warping everything from the punk guitar rhythms to the static vocals (if Ivan won’t start singing different, we’ll just distort his voice so it sounds changed). Found at the end of the album are two interesting remixes of previous tracks ("To Whom it May Concern" and "Ordinary Things"). The border-line techno remixes are an interesting take on Ahab’s more punk-alternative approach, and add more variety to an already diverse album. Ahab Rex defy labels and all in all create an well-done and interesting release, despite the vocal’s static (and sometimes laughable) nature.

(Published at MusicEmissions.com)